Balla (musician)
Encyclopedia
Balla is the musical alter-ego of Portuguese musician and record producer Armando Teixeira (musician)
Armando Teixeira (musician)
Armando Teixeira is a Portuguese musician and record producer. He has worked with a variety of projects within a wide scope of genres.Teixeira is a former member of indie rock bands Ik Mux and Boris Ex-Machina, as well as the hip hop group Da Weasel and industrial metal band Bizarra Locomotiva...

. Balla's music references the sound and style of Serge Gainsbourg
Serge Gainsbourg
Serge Gainsbourg, born Lucien Ginsburg was a French singer-songwriter, actor and director. Gainsbourg's extremely varied musical style and individuality make him difficult to categorize...

 and Jaques Brel, combined with hip hop and cut-and-paste references drawn from his time as DJ and producer with both Bizarra Locomotiva
Bizarra Locomotiva
Bizarra Locomotiva is an Industrial music band of Portugal. Its history dates back to 1993, when Armando Teixeira and Rui Sidónio started a band to participate in Modern Music Competition of the city of Lisbon....

 and the platinum selling Da Weasel
Da Weasel
Da Weasel was a Portuguese hip-hop band from Almada, fronted by MCs Pacman and Virgul. They were one of the oldest hip-hop projects in Portugal, having been created in 1993 and terminated in 2010, and notorious for being a full session band, instead of relying on a DJ and samples...

. The arrangements have been described as "reflecting a taste for sound composers like Barry Adamson
Barry Adamson
Barry Adamson is a British rock musician who has worked with rock bands such as Magazine, Visage, The Birthday Party, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, and the electronic musicians Pan sonic and Depeche Mode. Adamson created the seven-minute opus "Useless " remix for the latter band in 1997...

". Armando Teixeira is recognized as a composer, musician and producer of note within Portugal, and his latest studio album A Grande Mentira has been described by Antena 3 as "pop, electronica, eroticism and fury". "In this space, I have adopted the solitary writing of a Nick Cave
Nick Cave
Nicholas Edward "Nick" Cave is an Australian musician, songwriter, author, screenwriter, and occasional film actor.He is best known for his work as a frontman of the critically acclaimed rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, established in 1984, a group known for its eclectic influences and...

 or Iggy Pop
Iggy Pop
Iggy Pop is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. Though considered an innovator of punk rock, Pop's music has encompassed a number of styles over the years, including pop, metal, jazz and blues...

" Balla has said of his own work. When asked if Balla was the summary of his years spent in Bizarra Locomotiva or Da Weasel, he responded "Probably, yes... Any of these bands were very closed, while Balla represents freedom. I am able to experiment a lot. Here there is a little bit of everything that I have done."

Biography

Balla first appeared on the Optimus 2000:we'vebeenwatchingyou collection, with his track "Âmago", in 2000 (alongside other bands such as Plástica and Atomic Bees). His eponymous first album of original songs was released in the same year, and was described as "crossing the atmosphere of accessible Portuguese music, with dance rhythms and pop sounds, finally connected through cut-and-paste, first experimented upon in the universe of hip-hop. The result is essentially a pop sound, yet different from that presented by previous efforts, where the results were rougher. In Balla, Armando Teixeira tried to recreate, in his style, the musical ambience of the 60s and the 70s."

In 2003 Balla released his second full-length, entitled Le Jeu, where the humour of the persona is rendered more clearly. A review described the album as "it's pop, it's 'chanson française', it's eroticism, it's electronica and everything else that a disc of such complex songs can suggest. Firstly, because it's based on erotic film soundtracks from the 60s, 70s and 80s, and then because it has songs, about everything and about nothing... Besides all this, Armando Teixeira continues to hold a certain relish for humor, symbolism and daydreaming." The cover of Le Jeu is possibly a reference to the Nathaniel Merriweather (aka Dan The Automator
Dan the Automator
Daniel M. Nakamura , better known by the stage name Dan the Automator, is a Japanese-American hip hop producer. He founded the record label 75 Ark, which was distributed by Tommy Boy Records during its short existence....

) project Lovage (band)
Lovage (band)
Lovage is a collaborative project headed by Dan the Automator, under his pseudonym "Nathaniel Merriweather" . The album is called Music to Make Love to Your Old Lady By, which was created in team with Mike Patton and Jennifer Charles, who both provide vocals...

, and his album Music to Make Love to Your Old Lady By, which is in itself a pastiche of Serge Gainsbourg's No. 2 album.

A Grande Mentira [The Big Lie], was released in 2006. Balla not only composed but also recorded, mixed and produced the entire album. The album includes a cover of "Oub`lá" by Mão Morta
Mão Morta
Mão Morta is a Portuguese avant-garde rock band that started its activities in 1985 in Braga. The group's name means "dead hand", based on a traditional Portuguese nursery rhyme. They are generally considered to be one of the most important bands in the Portuguese rock scene...

. Resumo (2000–2008) (Chiado Records/Sony BMG), released in 2008, is a collection of works from his first three albums.

Besides live touring regularly, Balla has played at several large Portuguese music festivals, including Festival Serra da Estrela 2007, headlining on the "Palco Planeta Sudoeste" stage at Festival Sudoeste in 2007 (alongside Datarock
Datarock
Datarock, derived from the Norwegian word for computer – datamaskin and the word rock , is a Norwegian electro rock band. The band formed in 2000 as Fredrik Saroea, Ketil Mosnes and Kevin O'Brien and soon hired Tom Mæland. O'Brien and Mæland later left the band, but the duo of Saroea and Mosnes...

 and Bonde do Rolê
Bonde do Rolê
Bonde do Rolê is a Funk Carioca-influenced electropop group from Curitiba, Brazil, consisting of MCs Pedro D'Eyrot, Laura Taylor, Ana Bernardino, and DJ/MC Rodrigo Gorky...

) and Festival Alive!07 in Oeiras alongside the Smashing Pumpkins and The White Stripes
The White Stripes
The White Stripes was an American rock band, formed in 1997 in Detroit, Michigan. The group consisted of the songwriter Jack White and drummer Meg White . Jack and Meg White were previously married to each other, but are now divorced...

  Balla has also contributed a duet with Paulo Gonzo
Paulo Gonzo
Paulo Gonzo, born Alberto Ferreira, Paulo , is a Portuguese singer and songwriter. He has made various albums throughout his career, including the album "Jardins Proibidos". Many of his musical compositions have been used as theme songs for Portuguese telenovelas...

 to the "Movimento UPA", alongside Camané
Camané
Camané is a male vocalist, and a forerunner of the new generation of fado male singers. "The greatest fadista since Amalia Rodrigues and Maria da Fe," is how British biographer David Bret, describes him....

, JP Simões
JP Simões
JP Simões is a Portuguese singer and musician. He was born in Coimbra, Portugal, in 1970. Due to the Carnation Revolution of 1974 and subsequent turmoil, at age five he emigrated to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where he stayed about a year...

 and Mariza
Mariza
Mariza is the stage name of a popular fado singer. She was born Marisa dos Reis Nunes on 16 December 1973 in Lourenço Marques, Mozambique. At the time, Mozambique was known as the Portuguese Overseas Province of Mozambique....

, which campaigns to combat against discrimination toward people with mental illness.

Discography

  • Balla (EMI) - 2000
  • Le Jeu (Music Mob) - 2003
  • A Grande Mentira (Chiado Records) - 2006
  • Resumo 2000/2008 (Chiado Records/Sony-BMG) - 2008

Other works

  • Optimus 2000: we'vebeenwatchingyou (EMI-Valentim de Carvalho) - 2000
  • Exploratory Music From Portugal (Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation) - 2001
  • E se depois...: Tributo a Mão Morta (RagingPlanet) - 2007

External links

  • http://www.myspace.com/ballaportugal
  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzAylwA3gSk&feature=related
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